logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

characters: everyone.
location: around town.
date/time: october 9-17.
content: the hallucinations begin...
warnings: psychological horror. please cw tags appropriately.

it's probably something that shouldn't be said out loud

October 9 feels like a normal day at first, save for the red lighthouse beam cutting through the darkness overhead. You know by now—or you've heard—that the lighthouse is only active during ferry arrivals and events... And there's definitely no ferry docked at the, er. Beach. The town is quiet, the forest spirits behave business-as-usual, Rastus doesn't know what's up. Whatever's going on, you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

And you will, though the hallucinations are subtle at first: objects moving when they shouldn't, people's proportions looking just a bit off, voices in an empty room, and so on. Is it just your mind playing tricks in the darkness? Might be! Will did warn you all about the effects of living without a sun and a proper day/night cycle.

As the days go on, the hallucinations are harder to ignore, no matter how much you may wish to wave them off as flukes. What's wrong with everyone's faces? When did all the howling start? Who do you hold onto when the world drops out from under you? And those hands...

While you might know it can't be real, it certainly feels real. But at least it can't last forever!

...Right?

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"Is that what the movie was about?" Crowley says, shrugging. "I don't know, I just saw it because Aziraphale wanted to." And, of course, it was in color which was incredibly cool and Crowley couldn't miss out on a human invention like that. He rather likes the cinema, though he tends to go watch children's movies far more than anything else. Always more fun than the things that are supposed to make him think.

"If that's what you want me to call you, that's what I'll call you. It's all up to you, you pick your own name---nickname, whatever."

Startled out of her musing, Elizabeth just sort of... sighs in resignation at being addressed that way. Her lantern, as always, is pressed closed to her chest.

But it would be rude not to answer... whomever is up in that tree. "I had hoped that getting away from the busiest parts of town would help with the hallucinations," she admitted.

Ironicaly, that's why Bucky originally saw it, too... because the innovation of seeing it in color was amazing, and because Steve wanted to. Not that it remembers either of those things now. The film just exists, semi-complete, in its head, with no real context. Memory is weird.

The Soldier gives him a vaguely annoyed look, but does start waking again. They're almost at the Invincible by now. "Why is this so important to you. I did the math. I spent at least sixty years being called either Soldat or Asset. Either of those are fine." No, no they're not, but it can't accept anything else yet.

( Javert falls silent, his expression reluctant, but contemplative. She frames it as a command, and considering how much the disgraced inspector respects her, it's not one he feels he can rightfully refuse. She already knows that he is not irreproachable, so what is the difference? )

You remember the arrest I told you about? The one that caused me to denounce Valjean to the Prefect of Police?

( He scratches his beard, and lets out an exasperated sigh at himself. )

I was out on patrol one evening, making my rounds through the town square, when I came across a man and a woman. The man was defending himself, and the woman was assaulting him, kicking and clawing at his person like a frenzied creature. I broke up the fight, dragged the woman off to the police station, which was nearby, and charged her with assault.

I did not take any statements. I did not care what had started the fight. To me, the woman was guilty, not because of what I had seen, which was damning, but because of what she was. I could not conceive of a man, upstanding and well-off as he, of doing anything unsavory. So the woman must have been lying. And why was she lying? Because she was a prostitute.

( He falls into silence again, his hands resting on his lap, looking down at the floor. There's no pride in his stance, just simple humility as he says, in a softer tone, )

I was simple minded. It brings me great shame to admit it but it's true.

I'm fine, thanks.

[No explanation offered, though - thanks, Ignis, for creating one. Sure, the darkness, that's what's to blame. He thwacks over his lantern with his arm as he tries to sit up, grimacing slightly as it comes to a hard stop against the leg of the table, then retrieves it and sets it on top of the table where he can't accidentally knock it over quite so easily.

In fact, maybe he'll just do as he usually does at the bar or many other places here and stay sitting on the floor. He fits a little better that way.]

Speaking of moving between worlds and that ferry, I had a strange conversation with a Doctor Lutece a few weeks back. Have you ever heard of "quantum physics"?

There's always bread cheese. I do love a good bread cheese, particularly the way they used to-- the way they put jam on it up north and eat it with thick bread for breakfast. Delicious.

[ Whoops, does Bucky know he's 6000? Better keep that under wraps. ]

At the question, Elizabeth takes a cautious in-drawn breath, as if wary what odor might hit her that prompted the other woman to ask such a thing. But the air reveals nothing out of the ordinary, and she shakes her head after a moment.

"I'm sorry, I don't smell anything unusual. Dare I ask...?"

"I'm trying!" he growls back, thoroughly pissed off at the hands now as he sees them yanking books off the shelves and jerking the very shelves out of the way also, doing whatever they can to disrupt him. In a fit of anger, he brings the chair down hard against the hands all over the shelves, causing its legs and back to split from the seat and leaving him wielding a sharp, jagged piece of wood as a weapon.

The hands scatter and retreat as he slashes at them, but find a new target as they seemingly surround Daylight's head and begin to crisscross his face and throat with sharp, silver strings. But it quickly becomes apparent as he fights them off and slashes through strands of wire that the hands are phantoms - of course they are, they always have been, even though his mind keeps trying to make them real. They retreat to the darkness, and the strings fall to the floor as they dissolve.

"Daylight, listen to me, it's not - there's nothing there, it's in your head!" he insists as he sits back on his knees to the side, watching movement dart back and forth at the edge of the light.

God is an ethereal being, my dear boy-- they [ he almost says "we" ] aren't men nor women, but I have always thought of Her as a mother, hence. She.

[ To be fair, he hadn't bothered with pronouns until human languages were invented, and by then human mothers had been invented, and therefore. She. But anyway. ]

--Do you prefer the full title? Witch, warlock, devastatingly handsome magic user...

[ He pauses here for a name. ]

[Bread cheese. It's not like "grilled cheese sandwich" is really any better, but it just sounds ridiculous. The Sergeant drops his head into his hands, still laughing, though it's a rough sound like he hasn't done a lot of it recently.]

Yeah. Yeah, that. Sounds great.

[And it kind of does! Jam on grilled cheese might be something to experiment with! But it's just so dumb-sounding he can't help but laugh weakly. Into his hands. Okay, and a lot of that is stress finding an awkward outlet, but still. (Better than hitting things, right?)

And no, he doesn't know you're 6000 years old, Aziraphale. Just older than you look, but then again, so is he.]

[ Oh. Well, that floors him a bit. ]

--Surely not all that time.

[ He's half-joking, but also looking to Crowley for an answer. ]

Is this the first he's mentioned 'HYDRA'? Everything is just fuzzy enough she can't quite tell, and she's not feeling up to pressing for any more than he freely gives at present. So she nods her understanding, quick to burrow into any and all dry cloth on offer.

The towel, as a matter of fact, earns a tentative smile. Having known him not terribly long, it's surprising that little humane quirks are so comforting.

"Anything you can vaguely recall liking? An instrument, vocals or not, anything? Don't want to culture shock you more than I can help."

It pauses to think a moment, filling the teapot, then shakes its head. "I know I. Came from. World War II." That comes out a little halting, mostly because of the stupid handler technicality and how it shouldn't be telling one it remembers something about Before HYDRA, but also in part because it's had some weird reactions to that fact. "So maybe music from then, if you have any?"

"There are snails. They aren't telepathic, though." The Soldier is reasonably certain that nothing where it comes from is telepathic. The bar has coffee, awesome. It sets that to percolate a new pot, looking pleased with the discovery.

Maybe the snail would have survived if it had a lantern? Hrm. "How do you get them to stay still for your tech?" Snails are slow, sure, but not immobile.

[ He flips the knife again. The blade winks in the low light. Then he spreads his arms, like he'd done that very first time this happened. Just as cocky and self-assured. ]

You'll have to prove it.

I think you're too weak to do that. I think you'll let everyone else stop you.

"I've never had to set one up from scratch, I don't know how they do it. They're pretty docile, though. Probably bred to be that way. Any I've ever had already had the modifications made by the time it got to me," he says with a shrug. "Whatever mechanism you need, buttons or a receiver or so on, it comes already attached to the shell."

And truly, they're so commonplace that he's never wondered much about how it all works. Before Beacon, he sort of took snail phones and the others for granted. Just another piece of equipment. Animate, alive, but still basically just an object.

Out of habit, his eyes dart around the room to see who else is here. Disturbingly, he recognizes each of the other faces not from Beacon but from that same mob he seems to be flashing back to every few minutes today, and he finds himself averting his gaze before they can recognize him. Would he even be recognizable now, so many years later? He doesn't really want to find out.

[Crowley raises an eyebrow]

I wasn't looking at your ass the whole time, yes.

[But at you? Yes.]

Edited 2019-10-19 02:21 (UTC)

[ But he has been looking six thousand years.

Aziraphale takes Crowley's face in his hands. ]

My dear boy.

[ His smile is so incandescent it's a wonder Beacon hasn't lit up. ]

Kiss me.

"I just think you deserve to be a person. Pick whatever name you want or don't want, but stop thinking of yourself as a thing. I don't think of you as a thing. Maybe that makes me a lousy handler, but I was never very good at it to begin with."

And Crowley doesn't think he'd be friends with a thing. He's friends with a person. And the human soldier person is a person.

[Certainly don't have to tell Crowley twice.

He leans down and presses his mouth to Aziraphale's, shutting his eyes to savor the moment, the sensation of kissing the person he's adored---loved if he's honest with himself---for all of these years.

Take that, "move slower".]

[ The hallucinations don't bother her any less when she sits near the bonfire, but it does give her something to focus all her attention on so that she can try and pay them less mind. Wrapped snugly in a warm coat, her lantern tucked between her knees, Elizabeth is almost to the point of dozing off when Lunafreya's exclamation starts her into wakefulness... just in time to see the other woman reaching for the flames. ]

No! [ She grabs at Lunafreya's arm, hoping to tug her back. ]

Please, that's dangerous!

I... I'm not sure what's so funny.

[ He blinks owlishly, as if missing a joke, but he goes to prepare coffee anyway.

Does it seem familiar, having someone to grind the beans by crank? Hardly anyone does it anymore. ]

"Maybe."

He shakes his head, eyes drifting over to the edge of the forest. He keeps seeing shadows, as if the hands are actually dragging something out of the forest or from the ground. He's positive they're not.. and yet...

"Precursor to something worse perhaps. When all these hands are actually able to grab onto something. Or worse someone."

[ Elizabeth stops when the blonde takes a stance in her path, her steps slowing to a standstill in utter confusion. She glances down at the lantern she holds cradled, but he can't possibly mean that, not when he must have one as well. ]

I'm... sorry? Where did I get what?

[ No, he's staring at her hand, and Elizabeth thinks he must be looking at the silver thimble that covers the missing end of her pinkie finger. She covers it reflexively with her other hand. ]

[ Aziraphale hooks his bad hand over Crowley's neck and then leans back on the bed, drawing Crowley over him. Hair spread out among the pillow in tight curls, he looks up at Crowley with sweet, curious eyes. ]

We don't have to talk about this, do we?

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EVENT LOG: BURY A FRIEND

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